Britain is blessed in many ways. We have so few disasters happen. Seeing the fires in California made me think of this. I guess they are taking place over a large area which is difficult to control. We are such a small island with relatively small areas of wild land so any fire can be dealt with quickly. We don't have earthquakes, well only minor ones that you hardly feel. Today in more northerly parts there is snow. If we have three days of snow we panic and wonder how we will cope, but before we have time to decide what to do we find it has gone away again. We moan about our weather but really it is very mild, at least, most of the time. In Russia last July I found the Russians have a similar attitude to us about summer never making an appearance. I don't know what they say about their snow, but they certainly get enough of it.
I have written in previous posts about disasters. In the case of Concorde, decisions by people, plus other factors were directly to blame for the event. In the case of the Penlee disaster it may have been avoided if someone had made a better choice in the time beforehand and as a consequence brave men and the ship's crew and the captain and his family died. 9/11 was certainly the result of wicked men committing a terrorist act, but even in this there was heroism notably by another Cornish man, Rick Rescorla who helped many to safety and left it too late to help himself. In situations like this we see what the human spirit is capable of both good and evil. What of disasters that come on people because of the earth restless movement of tectonic plates. Often people live near volcanoes because the land is rich and fertile and they have the chance of a better life there when the volcano is resting. We cannot blame them for that but sometimes people become complacent...
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